Here’s another “This I Believe” essay from one of Nancy Lensenmayer’s LIS students, Derek Zoladz.
- George
This I believe
If there is one concept above all others that can inform the practice of librarianship, it would be the concept of care. I initially thought about this when I encountered a paraphrased statement made by Joan Durrance in a textbook I was reading for a class in library school. The phrase spoke about a librarian’s clients, and I immediately envisioned this possessive connection bound together by care. Why should they be bound by anything else? Caring is an integral component in many professional environments. For as librarians, what significance do we possess in the current information economy without the continued investment of others that come back to us time and again for the services we provide.
It was Martin Buber who said that when we care, we consider the other’s point of view. If there is any profession in existence that demands the highest magnitude of consideration for others, it is librarianship. Care accentuates the role of interpersonal relationships, focusing on the vital interdependence of individuals, while retaining the necessity of individual autonomy. The elasticity of care is very forgiving. It responds to any increase in value that is generated from close relationships with others.
I believe that care should be the framework for an ethical interaction between the librarian and the librarian’s clients.
Care is imbued with respect, which is entrenched in the human condition. Respect comprehends individual differences and demands an elevated level of intercultural competence to facilitate the establishment and persistent development of valuable relationships. Care respects a client’s civil rights regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity, or any other sociological encapsulation that has been or will be devised. Every client, their overwhelming uniqueness, as Emmanuel Levinas might say.
But care will inevitably fall short, if we librarians cannot establish trust. Trust emerges from within a secure and blossoming relationship. It is the librarian’s duty to cherish and maintain trust to fulfill the agreement of care. Trust is the contractual glue binding the librarian and client in a relationship of growth. Anything less than a full commitment and the strength of trust gradually decays, threatening the precarious communicative bonds that elicit the most productive and targeted expression of the client’s innermost need. Kuhlthau calls it ‘anxiety’. Brenda Dervin calls it a ‘gap’. Regardless of the terminology we employ to describe the resolution of this generalized discomfort, librarians are entangled within a process of healing. Care struggles to combat the malaise that arises from the darkness of the unknown, and it performs this function through the establishment of respectful and trustworthy relationships. If there is anything I believe, this I believe. The most vibrant and prosperous endeavors a librarian can strive to accomplish are those that are founded in a philosophy of care.